Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
07HAVANA1038
2007-11-02 18:18:00
CONFIDENTIAL
US Interests Section Havana
Cable title:  

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

Tags:  PINR PREL CU 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO6859
RR RUEHAO RUEHCD RUEHGA RUEHGD RUEHHA RUEHHO RUEHMC RUEHNG RUEHNL
RUEHQU RUEHRD RUEHRG RUEHRS RUEHTM RUEHVC
DE RUEHUB #1038/01 3061818
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 021818Z NOV 07
FM USINT HAVANA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 2453
INFO RUEHWH/WESTERN HEMISPHERIC AFFAIRS DIPL POSTS
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC
RHEHAAA/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 HAVANA 001038 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR WHA/CCA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/26/2017
TAGS: PINR PREL CU
SUBJECT: WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

REF: A. A) ADAMS' E-MAIL OF 10/26


B. B) HAVANA 1019

C. AND C) HAVANA 1029

Classified By: COM: Michael E. Parmly: For reasons 1.4 b/d

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 HAVANA 001038

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR WHA/CCA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/26/2017
TAGS: PINR PREL CU
SUBJECT: WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

REF: A. A) ADAMS' E-MAIL OF 10/26


B. B) HAVANA 1019

C. AND C) HAVANA 1029

Classified By: COM: Michael E. Parmly: For reasons 1.4 b/d


1. (C) SUMMARY: On Wednesday, October 24, Cuban state
television broadcast a 14-minute excerpt of President Bush,s
speech on Cuba only hours after he had delivered it. The
next day,s issue of state-owned newspaper Granma devoted its
entire second page to excerpts of the President,s speech,
including the three major initiatives he announced for Cuba
and some of his severest criticism of the current regime.
The obvious question is "Why?" Our best answer: Faced with
limitations of space, time, and the fact that modern
technology makes total blockage of news all but impossible,
the Cuban regime chose to publish those parts of the
President,s speech for which it had a ready response and
ignore the rest, hoping audiences on the island would do the
same. END SUMMARY



2. (SBU) On Wednesday, October 24, Cuban state television
broadcast a 14-minute excerpt of President Bush,s speech on
Cuba mere hours after he had delivered it. The next day,s
issue of state-owned newspaper Granma devoted its entire
second page to excerpts of the President,s speech, including
the three major initiatives he announced for Cuba and some of
his severest criticism of the current regime. The obvious
questions raised by this unusual exercise in (partial)
full-disclosure -- by all accounts unprecedented during the
Castro era -- are: Why did the regime decide to go this
route? What got left in and what got left out of the
versions the GOC decided to release, and why? Our answers
are of course speculative, but include the informed judgment
of senior Cuban national employees, other contacts who have
provided us with their opinions of the speech, as well as our
own gut instincts.


3. (SBU) Many of the cuts in Granma appear to have been
space-related, since the same pieces were broadcast in their
entirety on Cuban state television and the paper probably did
not want to devote more than one full page to the text.
Cuban TV picked up the President,s speech approximately
half-way through, beginning where he stated, "As long as the
regime maintains its monopoly over the political and economic

life of the Cuban people, the United States will keep the
embargo in place." Cuban television then showed the rest of
the speech through to its end, including several paragraphs
that did not appear in Granma.


4. (SBU) Granma,s translation began with the President,s
opening remarks and his praise for the work of State
Department employees. The sentence beginning "Secretary Rice
constantly tells me about the good work..." was cut,
undoubtedly to save space. The reasons for next cut -- the
portion of the speech that dealt with the circumstances under
which diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba were
broken in the early 60s -- are less clear. Some contacts
maintain that it was untrue that the Cuban regime "...ordered
American diplomats to evacuate our embassy in Havana," and
therefore the cut was made to avoid a misstatement of fact.
Others pointed out that, whether true or not, the statement
if anything would have been beneficial to the regime,s
cause, and therefore the cut was likely space-related.
Similarly, the elimination of the President,s remarks
thanking the OAS and the paragraph about the "great success
stories of the past century" was likely due to space
concerns, since equal or worse criticism elsewhere was
allowed to stand.


5. (SBU) The next three cuts are significant. The language
about neighborhood watches, and the fact that it is illegal
for more than three Cubans to meet without a permit,
obviously struck a nerve and were eliminated. The charges
are well known to every Cuban. (Curiously, despite the
GOC,s censorship of this portion in its released versions,
Foreign Minister Perez Roque brought the freedom of assembly
issue up himself during his long rebuttal in a press
conference held at MINREX two hours later. He said the fact
that Cubans commonly gather together by the thousands for
mass political rallies disproved this allegation on its
face.) Likewise, the short sentence starting "Hundreds are
serving long prison sentences for political offenses" was
obviously not removed to save space; the capriciousness of
the Cuban legal system is also well known among average
Cubans and criticism of it hard to refute.


6. (SBU) But the most stinging allegation in the entire

HAVANA 00001038 002 OF 003


speech, according to a number of sources, was President
Bush,s denunciation of abuses in Cuba,s housing system.
Food and housing are the two most important daily concerns
for the average Cuban, and while most Cubans may not
necessarily eat well, at least they eat. But housing is
another story, and people are indeed fed up and furious with
the "ruling class" for living in mansions while they and
their families are forced to reside in misery. This
accusation is undeniably well-known to all, and a constant
source of resentment and embitterment for everyday Cubans.
Thus, there is little wonder why the regime chose to excise
it from its published versions of the President,s speech.


7. (SBU) Granma allowed the sentence in which the President
referred to family members who had joined him for the
occasion to stand, but then cut out all the introductions and
mentions of these individuals by name. Whether the cuts were
due to space limitations, GOC concerns about publicizing the
names and activities of dissidents and political prisoners, a
perceived lack of interest on the part of Cubans on the
island, or all three, is anyone,s guess. We believe they
didn't want to publicize--and humanize--people that they
regularly refer to as "worms."


8. (SBU) The final two cuts were definitely not
space-related. The paragraph that began with "...calls for
fundamental change are growing across the island" went on to
highlight public demonstrations that the Cuban media had
never covered and that most Cubans were unaware of, including
large protest marches in Camaguey and Villa Clara, and a
smaller demonstration in Havana. Likewise, the GOC clearly
did not want to draw attention to the activities of other
embassies. While U.S. support for dissidents and activists
is well-known, most Cubans are probably unaware that other
foreign missions are engaged in such activities as well. The
GOC may fear that more embassies will want to do the same.


9. (SBU) The regime,s edits aside, the overall question
remains: "Why?" Cuban contacts speculated that the GOC
realized it would be impossible to block publication of the
speech entirely and decided to release those portions for
which it had a ready response. In effect, the GOC opted to
engage in a "spin control" exercise, albeit one that depended
upon bombast rather than logic and measured argument.
Conversations with a handful of "average Cubans" after the
speech indicate that the strategy may have worked, at least
initially. These individuals told us that (a) it was good
that the GOC had decided to publish much of the President,s
speech, since (b) they could thus see for themselves that the
speech contained little that was new, and (c) Perez Roque,s
vigorous and vitriolic rebuttal a mere two hours later at his
own news conference convinced them that their foreign
minister had "won" the debate. (Of course, it must be
remembered that none of these individuals was privy to the
whole speech, only those parts the GOC allowed to be
published.)


10. (C) COMMENT: We believe that, faced with limitations of
space, time, and the fact that modern technology would get
the word out despite its best efforts, the Cuban regime chose
to publish those parts of the President,s speech for which
it had a ready response and ignore the rest, hoping its
audiences on the island would do the same. It was a gamble
the GOC had no choice but to take, and may have seemed to win
at first blush. While word of the speech has gotten out, it
is unlikely that many ordinary Cubans saw it in its entirety.
An informal sampling of visa applicants conducted a few days
after the speech revealed that 64 percent (27 of 42) had
heard about the speech, all but three of them from Cuban TV.
Dissidents and human rights activists listened closely, but
beyond applauding calls for the release of political
prisoners, which all can agree on, they tended to focus on
those specific parts of the speech that they did -- or in
some cases did not -- want to hear. Those hoping for a
relaxation in family visitation rules, for example, were
disappointed.


11. (C) COMMENT CONTINUED: We believe the verdict is not yet
in. The demand for copies of the speech from our public
affairs section remains extraordinarily high: over 2200
copies in Spanish and English have been distributed to date.
And now that a video version is available in both languages,
more people will be able to see the genuine emotion on the
faces of the President and his guests during his introduction
of family members of political prisoners. Those images may
end up having more of an impact than all the words combined.


12. (C) COMMENT CONTINUED: The real test will depend upon
our ability to execute the three initiatives the President

HAVANA 00001038 003 OF 003


announced in regard to the Internet, student scholarships,
and the development fund. Skepticism that these can be made
to work remains high, since they hinge on securing a degree
of cooperation from the Cuban government that it has
heretofore been unwilling to provide. Still, the speech held
out a measure of hope for the Cuban people, and USINT will
continue to do all it can to turn the President,s rhetoric
into reality.
PARMLY